2017 in Review – Makers and Breakers In Technology

With our toes high and dry on the shores of 2018, we at VR Zone thought it prime time to look again at 2017, and how know-how has developed and impacted us all year long. 2017 has seen the discharge of many new merchandise, from CPUs and graphics playing cards to cameras and gaming consoles. Right here, we check out a few of the greatest news and their results on the world of know-how.

The Good

AMD CPUs

2017 noticed the discharge of AMD’s Ryzen and Threadripper line-up, convey competitors again to the CPU market. With twice the core rely at a decrease price, Ryzen handily beat Intel’s then mainstream Kaby Lake processors. After practically a decade of dominance by Intel, AMD’s newest processors have caused decrease costs and higher efficiency, pushing Intel to extend the core counts in its newest 8th era Espresso Lake processors. With Ryzen 2 and Cannon Lake hopefully to return in 2018, we're actually hoping that there might be better enhancements and higher costs for CPUs in the 12 months to return.

Digital camera Releases

The Nikon D850 is the best full body DSLR cash should buy. Source: Nikon

The 12 months has additionally been an awesome one for photographers. Early in the 12 months, Sony introduced the Sony A9, a camera which acquired rave evaluations from many photographers worldwide. With a lot better velocity and improved dealing with over earlier mirrorless cameras, the A9 could be the camera to steer extra professionals to embrace mirrorless programs as their primary cameras. Then on Nikon’s 100th anniversary in July, Nikon introduced the D850. It swiftly earned nice evaluations from all quarters as nicely, turning into the primary DSLR to attain 100 in DXOMark’s scores, proving that there's nonetheless life in the DSLR market and that it isn't going to go away anytime quickly.

Bezel-less Smartphones

The Galaxy S8 is among the best promoting bezel-less smartphones in 2017. Source: Samsung

Whereas the primary mainstream bezel-less smartphone, the Mi MIX, was launched in 2016, 2017 is the 12 months that the bezel-less smartphone turned mainstream. With the discharge of the Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+ and LG G6 early in the 12 months, many of the flagship telephones of 2017 embraced the high screen-to-body ratio and the 18:9 screen format, ensuing in many lovely designs and smaller phone sizes. Although higher design is at all times good, we hope that 2018 would result in enhancements in the battery lifetime of smartphones, which to date has remained the most important gripe for customers the previous few years.

Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies, ICOs

Ask anyone to call the most important (tech) news in 2017, and many will definitely point out bitcoin. The cryptocurrency has soared to file highs this 12 months, exceeding USD19000 in the center of December, earlier than crashing to USD11000 and recovering once more in direction of the tip of the 12 months. 2017 additionally noticed the rise of Preliminary Coin Choices (ICO), with many companies and traders keen to leap on the cryptocurrency bandwagon. Is Bitcoin a bubble? Will cryptocurrencies and ICO see better regulation? 2018 will definitely be the 12 months we see the solutions to those questions. Keep tuned for our Bitcoin 101 sequence coming in the following few weeks, as VRZone takes a deep dive into the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency market to convey you every part you could find out about cryptocurrencies.

The Dangerous

WannaCry and the Rise of Ransomware

Opposite to well-liked perception, ransomware have truly been round for fairly a number of years. Nevertheless, it was solely this 12 months that ransomware hit the mainstream, with the WannaCry outbreak knocking out the pc programs of hospitals, banks and authorities places of work all through the world. It was adopted a number of months later by the NotPetya outbreak, utilizing the identical EternalBlue exploit to achieve entry and encrypt information, holding them for ransom. Whereas the assaults have induced enormous financial harm, particularly in nations that had been badly affected, a key lesson discovered by many was the significance of preserving their programs up to date with the most recent safety patches.

Graphics Playing cards

The GTX 1080Ti is among the quickest graphics playing cards of 2017. Source: NVidia

If 2017 was an awesome 12 months for CPUs, it actually is the alternative for GPUs. Whereas mainstream 4K 120Hz gaming is turning into more and more doable and well-liked, Nvidia’s 10 sequence graphics playing cards stay the undisputed king, with 2016’s GTX 1080 and Titan X merely being displaced by 2017 GTX 1080Ti and Titan Xp. The shortage of competitors in the market in current years has led to ever growing costs, made worse this 12 months by the cryptocurrency craze. Prime finish AMD and Nvidia playing cards are being snapped up by miners worldwide, resulting in shortages and driving costs to even larger ranges.

EA’s Microtransactions

With the discharge of Star Wars Battlefront 2 in November, Digital Arts (EA) was pulled into an enormous controversy over “loot bins” and its microtransaction mannequin. The huge backlash led to EA suspending the microtransactions a day earlier than its launch, with its inventory price taking a beating in the method, as avid gamers throughout the globe protested on online boards and cancelled pre-orders for the sport. We actually hope that EA would rethink its pricing fashions for future releases, as microtransactions, whereas an awesome match for mobile games, will not be actually appropriate for the PC games market.

The Dying Headphone Jack

The iPhone X lacks a headphone jack, like many different flagship telephones of 2017. Source: Apple

Apart from bezel-less screens, the new pattern for smartphones in 2017 appears to be a disappearing headphone jack. Whereas main manufacturers like Samsung, LG and Oneplus have dedicated themselves to the headphone jack, main releases by Apple and Google have omitted the jack fully, forcing extra and extra individuals to steer the dongle life. Whereas the businesses declare that eradicating the headphone jack is important for more and more slimmer telephones, there are lots of customers on the market who would definitely be prepared to commerce a millimetre or two of thickness for the comfort of with the ability to use their very own pair of wired earpieces.